


Irony is not what Metal feels like

by Superbanana



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Character Study, F/F, One-Shot, Please enjoy my brain vomit while waiting for my washing to be done, There should be more stuff to flesh them out, little bit in love with delia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 08:46:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10567770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superbanana/pseuds/Superbanana
Summary: Character study and a little back story of Delia. Re watching the series, especially series 5 I just wonder how she knows how to deal with someone as complex as Patsy. So I made something up.Not as terrible as it sounds hopefully.





	

Irony is a word Delia has always enjoyed, the weight of it in her mouth, the shape it made of her lips as the word was spoken, like waves on the sea.  
There wasn't that many people who were "into their books", as her mam would have said, in her village growing up. But there were a few. In particular an old spinster a few doors down had a shelf full of the things. Great dusty tomes that she proudly called 'Her Library'. Miss Greenland. Mad old woman with a dozen cats, a tendency to mutter under her breath and no teeth. 

Delia had been terrified of her when she was very small; all the children had been. An angry old woman that the other kids laughed at until she looked at them with her strangely piercing blue eyes. They never did get there balls back. Pants wetting terror had eventually relented into a macabre kind of curiosity as Delia nose dived into her teenage years. She'd started popping her head in the door after school; taking her mam's cakes over on a Sunday after church despite the woman's protestations that she couldn't abide sugar even as she stuffed the second slice into her mouth with relish. 

The woman had been stern, straight backed. Angry and a little bitter although she never explained why and Delia was never quite brave enough to enquire. She'd let Delia mess around with the spare bandages the nurses who visited daily near the end left, had explained how the lungs worked even as they began to fail her. Had intoned on the importance of knowing the proper way to make a bed; tucking in all hospital corners just so. "A well made bed is a comfort to those who have so little to be comfortable about girl".  
She'd been a nurse in the war although Delia never worked out which war that was. What Delia did notice was the small things; she noticed the way the thin, dark spotted hands shook the cup of tea that was habitually in her hands at loud noises, the way something small and trivial like a man swearing at cows that wouldn't cross the path behind the house would make the woman stiffen and begin sweat. Delia learned how to help eventually. They never spoke about it; Delia was too young and Miss Greenwood was too tied up by her thoughts for that but sometimes sitting beside her leaving just enough of a gap to allow the woman to pretend she wasn't being cared for Delia learned how to help without being so rude as to speak and destroy the quiet. It was a bit like taming a wild bird. 

When she died, quietly and with little fuss she left, to everyone's surprise, her books to Delia. Delia still has some of them at her parents. In her childhood bedroom that her mam still keeps tidy just in case Delia ever decides to give up the city and 'Come Home'.

The only book Delia keeps with her now is a dictionary. It's a heavy thing, weighty with the words it holds. A medical dictionary. On the front page in cramped, spidery writing is the dedication. "To Delia, so that you can be anything you want to be." Delia had loved it, had loved the mad old woman for it. Delia had read all of them avidly of course; had loved the strange words she'd never heard before. Had traced the curves of the letters with a finger as she mouthed out the sounds although she wasn't always right with how they should sound. The girls at the London had laughed at her odd mispronunciation of words. Except Patsy of course. She hadn't laughed, she'd just frowned at why Delia would even know the word obloquious. 

... Patsy. Patsy had been a wild bird all of her own. Delia never asked the girl why a man with scars on his back would make her bite her lip and snap at a group of giggling trainees in the lunch room. Delia didn't demand to know why Patsy hadn't got a boy anywhere. The girls never bothered to ask her they all seemed to assume she had a man waiting for her in Wales when she finished up and she never bother to disabuse this notion. 

Later, Patsy had laughed of course but she'd laughed with Delia. Finally, a friend who understood the language Delia has dreamed of speaking. And just like a wild bird, just like an old woman Delia remembered fondly Patsy just became part of her day to day thoughts. They went out dancing; Delia danced, Patsy watched good naturedly even as she deflected seemingly endless propositions to dance. They went to the movies; Delia has always loved the musicals but Patsy much prefers a tragedy. 

Sometimes Patsy is unbearably dismissive and cold to the point that Delia has to leave to stop herself shattering or shaking the stubborn woman until she understand that she is loved and sometimes Delia is clumsy and tactless despite her best efforts and Patsy's eyes flash even as she bites out an excuse to return to her room and it can be days before she returns with an embarrassed expression and bottle of whisky peace offering. The bird never flies away far though. 

And then they're drinking whiskey in Patsy's room to celebrate a year closer to completing their training... and Patsy was kissing Delia... and she'd kissed Delia... Patsy kissed Delia... And Delia kissed her back... and the whiskey is warm on parched throats and, and, and...  
...  
...

Delia enjoys the word irony. Enjoys the fact that despite the large amount of words she has greedily ingested over her admittedly short life she has never been lost for them before. Except for the moments when Patience Mount kisses her. In those moments there really aren't words. 

Somewhere she think Miss Greenland would be proud.


End file.
